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The iPhone Dev Team has been busy from the looks of things. Redsn0w has just been updated to version 0.9.15b1 and includes a hefty amount of new changes. The update includes major features for restoring to older iOS firmware that Apple isn’t signing anymore. Some of the major changes are outlined below via the iPhone Dev Team blog:

Originally Posted by iPhone Dev Team Blog

restore from any 5.x iOS to any other (up, down or the same) 5.x iOS on all devices as long as you have the correct blobs (see more below)

significantly more (very nerdy) info returned by “Identify” button when device is in Normal mode

tethered jailbreak of ATV2 supported (but the only thing available for it is the SSH2 custom bundle available here — no Cydia yet. Must use “Select IPSW” for tethered boot of ATV2 for now).

auto-exit WTF mode for older devices with broken buttons

any time a set of blobs is fetched remotely (from Apple or Cydia), redsn0w also saves them locally (and will check there first if you click “Local”)

for your future restoring convenience, you should also submit all of your past and present TinyUmbrella blobs to Cydia if you haven’t done so yet. Resubmitting is okay and won’t cause conflicts.

The iPhone Dev Team includes even more information about the update that we will summarize in short for you below (alternatively, you can view the whole post here):

Restore A5 and newer devices from iOS 5 to any iOS 5 firmware you have SHSH blobs saved for

You cannot restore to older iOS 5 firmwares if you used OTA updating to install a new iOS update

Redsn0w won't be able to prevent baseband updates of A5 and newer devices

iPad 2 users can use iOS 4 SHSH blobs for restoring to iOS 5 (if you have iOS 4 and iOS 5 SHSH blobs saved) even when on a newer firmware such as iOS 6

One of the important parts of the update is that redsn0w 0.9.15b1 now installs Cydia on the tethered jailbreak for A4 devices. With the previous version of redsn0w that was used for jailbreaking iOS 6 on A4 and older devices, users would only get an SSH tool, since Cydia was not installed. It was possible to install Cydia manually using a command line interface such as Terminal. The jailbreak continues to be untethered for old-bootrom iPhone 3GS users.

The iPhone Dev Team also makes note that ultrasn0w is not yet ready for iOS 6. That being said, you will probably want to stay away from iOS 6 for now if you rely on ultrasn0w. Redsn0w 0.9.15b1 will not jailbreak your iPhone 5 or iPod touch 5G and it will not jailbreak any iPhone 4S, iPad 2, or third generation iPad running iOS 6 either. The latest untethered jailbreak remains at iOS 5.1.1.

There are a lot of changes in this new version of redsn0w to absorb into your brain at once, but everything is generally straightforward. The updated redsn0w is available for both Mac OS X and Windows – the download links are included below: